


Good Little Soldiers

by zarabithia



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Pre-New 52
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-07
Updated: 2007-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-20 17:44:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14899094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: Instead of Cassandra Cain, Slade picked a Titan to drug and rape.  Tim pays the price.





	Good Little Soldiers

Tim jerks awake with the sting of a slap still ringing on his cheeks and between his ears. Opening his eyes, the blurry form of Arsenal stands directly in line with the cases behind the former Titan, those devoted to Stephanie, Kon, and Tim’s parents. Tim’s first conscious thought is of Dick, and all the pain the man in front of him has caused the man they had once both loved.

"Wake up, Robin," Arsenal instructs coldly, with another close-fisted slap. "My master wants to talk to you."

The voice is rougher, and more callous than it had once been, when they’d still been on the same side. But it is still a familiar voice, one that Tim’s big brother has hundreds of tapes of since the redhead walked away from the Outsiders. It’s a voice that Dick obsesses over, even when Arsenal is not in Dick’s city. The sight of Dick pouring over those tapes, hunched body trying to figure out why a man that has always offered warmth suddenly became an enemy is at the forefront of Tim‘s mind now, and every part of Tim wants to cry out at seeing the former Titan standing next to the last man a former lover of Dick’s should ever call _master._ "Arsenal, what are you doing with _Slade_?"

The redhead doesn’t answer. He merely folds his arms across the red and black suit - colors that make Tim’s heart and stomach lurch both in association with Kon and with the man that Nightwing _almost_ became - and allows Slade to speak instead.

Tim tries to listen, as Slade rants like the madman he is, about the family that is better off without the mercenary in their lives. And he answers, refuting each delusional diatribe, all the while wondering how he is ever going to look his big brother in the eye and tell him that the man he loves so much has not only stopped being a hero, but has _joined forces_ with Slade.

He’ll blame himself, Tim knows, because Dick already blames himself for what Roy has become. Tim’s not sure when the time comes, if he’ll have the fortitude to hold back the hysterical bubbles of laughter that want to spring forth at the appropriateness of the irony. He wonders if maybe the hurt that Dick caused - and fleeting memories of nights shared with the redhead while Dick was training _Ravager_ how to become a more effective killer remind Tim of just how much pain the redhead had been under - had finally made the man that had once been so desperate to be save Dick snap.

He’ll have the benefit, he supposes, of telling Dick that he’d been wrong. Roy must have know _exactly_ how much Dick had cared for him, once. He would have had to have known in order to predict how much hurt joining Slade would have caused Nightwing. A _sane_ Nightwing, at any rate.

"You know how it feels to lose family, Drake. You lost your mother, your father, Spoiler, and Conner," Slade continues, and Tim takes time out from worrying about Dick’s problems long enough to hate Slade for having the audacity to use _that_ name. It was never _Conner._ "I lost my children. I lost them to the Titans. Now I want them back."

"The Titans won’t let you -"

"They will. Or there will be more changes like Harper."

"What are you talking about?" A tiny bit of hope begins to bubble in place and Tim tries to squelch it. The solution can’t be that simple. Everything that’s gone on with Roy can’t be. . .

"Why do you think Harper’s been acting like he has?" Slade is holding a needle now, irrefutable proof of Tim’s theory being accurate. Tim closes his eyes, briefly, remembering every murder, every death, every spilled bit of blood that Dick blames himself for so strenuously. His hands jerk against the binds holding them, wanting to get free, _needing_ to tell Dick that it wasn’t his fault, that they can _help_ Roy.

The solution is in his belt, made for Rose, never planned to be used on anyone else. If Tim can just get to it, he can give Dick back the part of _his_ life that Tim lost when Kon died.

"It’s time for your shot, Harper," Deathstroke instructs, and Tim watches in a combination of horror and relief as Roy rolls up his sleeve and allows Deathstroke access to inject serum into the former Titan’s veins. _Once a Titan, always a Titan._ It's been more than a year that the phrase had been muttered repeatedly in Tim's ear, in both English and Dineh, as his hands had brushed across lingering track marks that Roy had been so ashamed of.

"Arsenal, you have to stop!" Tim shouts, pulling at his chains again. "Don’t let him do this to you."

Roy snarls at him until the needle is removed. "Thank you, _Sir,_ " Roy murmurs in a demure fashion that _no_ Titan should _ever_ use with someone that has hunted them so often. Then he pulls the sleeve down and reaches for his gun.

"It wasn’t difficult to get the boy hooked," Deathstroke remarks, the calmness of his voice making Tim think, quite insanely, of _home._ "It’s not as though the boy hasn’t had poison in his veins before. Once an addict, always an addict, they say."

"Slade’s been poisoning your mind, Roy. He’s been pumping you full of the same serum that drove Ravager insane." _And we can fix you,_ he mentally adds. All Tim has to do is escape from these chains and get to the right pouch on his utility belt....

"Is it time yet, Sir?" The devotion in Roy’s voice is curbed only with irritation.

"Yes, it is quite time for the Nightwing to pay for what he took from me. You take family from me, I take family from you." Deathstroke inclines his head in a nod.

Tim’s last conscious thoughts, as the bullets hit him, are of Dick, and all the pain the actions of the man in front of him is going to cause the man they had once both loved.  



End file.
